


Air and Water

by Flaignhan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-TRoS, Reylo - Freeform, tros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21973969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flaignhan/pseuds/Flaignhan
Summary: Sometimes, she has no idea what to do with all the *him* that she carries with her. [Post TROS]
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	Air and Water

She is never alone.

She hasn’t been alone for a long time — not really — but since Exogol, she has been aware of him, always.

He fills up her spirit until she is certain it will overflow, and pour out through her mouth or her nose or her ears. Sometimes, she has no idea what to do with all the _him_ that she carries with her — in her mind, in her mood, and even in her physicality.

She notices herself doing little things these days. Things she can only have picked up from him. Sometimes she catches sight of herself, a reflection in a window perhaps, her attention diverted by a little quirk of her own eyebrow that she can trace wholly back to him.

It’s like they’ve become a single entity now — two halves of a whole. It’s an idea she would have rejected not so long ago, the notion of being half of something far bigger than herself. She had been, since she was young, furiously and stubbornly alone. But not now. Not now he’s with her.

She is quieter these days. The need for verbal communication seems less and less pressing. Rey knows the voices in his head were always cruel and destructive. But his voice in hers, soft words uttered as his energy courses through her, it’s the opposite. It’s love and loyalty and adoration all at once, but never overpowering. Never jarring. Somehow, she can always anticipate it moments before she hears it.

Sometimes it feels like he’s the air in her lungs.

But she can’t explain that feeling to anyone. Can’t find the words to describe that constant presence. Always, _always_ it is taken as an invasion of privacy, an over the top dependancy. But it’s not that. It’s not that at all.

When she says she is never alone, what she means is that she never feels alone. She hasn’t felt that aching vacancy inside her for nearly two years — even when she was angry with him. Which of course, she regrets now.

Such a waste of precious time.

On Jakku, she had scratched her loneliness into the walls of her home — a tally chart of isolation. She won’t scratch another line like that ever again. She has him, whenever she needs him. She carries him with her, a talisman forged into the very heart of her. At long last, she has found her family, and it is with him.

Whenever she ponders on it — which she does often — she notes a sense of reassurance, of comfort, and, bizarrely, _giddiness_. She supposes the giddiness is particular to her. The lonely girl knowing she will never feel alone ever again. She has no idea how she has earned such a luxury — such certainty.

What the future holds, she cannot fathom. But wherever she ends up, whatever trials she has to face between now and the end of her days, she knows he will be with her.

Every so often, the thought makes her laugh.

She adjusts her position in the pilot’s seat, and stares out of the viewport. Hundreds of stars and planets are scattered across the blackness. Some twinkle invitingly in the distance, while some are far closer, far more tangible.

She wonders which ones he’s seen, which ones he’s actually had a chance to see with those warm brown eyes, rather than a distorted view through a mask.

Now, with her freedom, and with peace starting to settle throughout the galaxy, she can visit any world she chooses. All of them, if she really wanted to. There’s no need to rush, however. There’s no destiny, weighing on her shoulders, no war to be fought, no wrongs to be righted.

Her life is her own, at last.

Perhaps it is that — or perhaps it is a combination of things, but she feels a sense of peace that she never knew it was possible to even achieve. The harshness of the galaxy has long since been shuttered out. In hindsight it is obvious to her, and the uncharitable part of her thinks it ought to have been obvious to those who came before her. True balance in the force was never going to be achieved by two sides keeping each other in check. True balance should never have been an eternal war of purity versus destruction.

Perhaps it is only obvious to her because there are two souls in her body. Perhaps the occurrence is so rare that those who created the doctrines had no idea that such a thing was even possible.

Except it’s not two souls. Not really. Or perhaps it is. She’s yet to really figure out how he exists within her — whether their souls have merged, or twisted and bound themselves so tightly together that they might as well be one. Perhaps they exist side by side within her, in such close proximity that it doesn’t really matter whose soul is whose anymore.

All that matters is that he is always with her.

He lumbers into the cockpit, two packets rustling in his hands. He holds them both up, revealing the different flavoured buns inside.

“Which one d’you want?” he asks.

Rey smiles at the sound of his voice, out loud, in the air. They mustn’t lose that. Mustn’t fall into the trap of communicating solely through their bond.

She leans forward and plucks one from his hand. Ben drops into the co-pilot’s seat and tears the packet of his bun open with his teeth. Rey pauses, her packet half open, and watches as he makes himself comfortable, one foot resting against the console. He takes a large bite of the bun, and Rey lets out a breath of laughter.

He turns to her, mid-chew, the remainder of the bun already halfway to his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Rey smiles and finishes opening her packet. Her eyes linger on the silver packaging only for the briefest of moments before her gaze returns to Ben. She shakes her head minutely, and picks at the top of the bun, removing a tiny piece and popping it in her mouth.

Ben frowns at the action, and Rey feels something stir inside her. It spreads from her chest, up into her head, down into her gut and all the way along her limbs until she thinks it might come out of her fingers and toes. It’s like drinking a whole canteen of ice cold water after a hard day’s work. She remembers how it used to be on Jakku, how the chill would feel like a blessing as it spread through her, keeping her safe and well for yet another day’s work.

The sensation passes, and he must be satisfied that nothing’s wrong, because he loads the last of his bun into his mouth and dusts off his fingers. He chews steadily and leans forward in his seat, squinting through the viewport. He looks down at the console to check their position, then reaches forward and taps a finger against the glass.

“That’s Naboo,” he says, his mouth still half full.

Rey looks towards the planet in the distance, its atmosphere flecked with the rich blues and greens of the world below.

Ben swallows the last of his bun and turns to look at her. “You wanna go?”

She nods, and he sets the course while she leans back in her seat and eats her bun. He needn’t have worried about her. He knows as well as she does that nothing could possibly be wrong ever again.


End file.
